fresh with beneful healthy smile snacks. with soft meaty centers and teeth cleaning texture ...it's dental that tastes so good new beneful healthy smile food and snacks this morning, my question -- are millennials really rushing in a new rather? and the little law that could has survived 40 votes to kill it. can it survive this icky campaign? and the pope continues to be freaking awesome. first, i don't care if the news cycle has move on. america is dying and we must pay attention. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. it's always the numbers we remember. the 26 in newtown, connecticut.

six adults, 20 children. the 70 killed and injured in aurora, colorado. the ten at a sikh temple in oak creek, wisconsin. the 19, one of them a member of the u.s. congress, outside a grocery store in tucson, arizona. the 56 at virginia tech. and this week, the 13. the 13 at the navy yard in washington, d.c. 13 people including the gunman dead after yet another mass shooting. this week, their names are still fresh in our memories. among them, martin bodrog, a 54-year-old navy veteran, husband, and father to three daughters. frank kohler, a 50-year-old engineer and father to two daughters. kathy gaarde, 62, who had begun to plan for retirement with her husband of 38 years. all of them will never be forgotten by those who knew them when they lived and always remembered by the rest of us as being among the 13 who died. and even when the faces and

names have grown fuzzy around the edges of our mmrys, we remember the numbers, because we can so easily imagine ourselves as one among them and substitute our own names and faces or those of our loved ones in their place. each time our empathy and our fear extend beyond city and state borders to embrace each loss as a collective american tragedy, one that demands we react and respond not just to save those who are immediately vulnerable by proximity to these attacks but to save ourselves. because we recognize those numbers, those steadily growing numbers as an all-american crisis, one that leaves all americans with a sense of vulnerability and unease, that calls for solutions to make all americans safer. and when that call goes out, whether the response is swift and decisive action from law enforcement or the slow and deliberative work of policy reform from our lawmakers, we know that someone is answering

that call. americans, we want to believe, can always rest assured that help is on the way. only there is nothing all-american about that assurance, because the reaction, the calls for answers after the navy yard shooting was very different than the response to another group of 13 -- the victims in our nation's most recent mass shooting, not the navy yard but the 13 at a southside chicago basketball court on thursday night. that was where at least one gunman with a high-powered rifle opened fire, unleashing more than a doezen bullets into a crowd gathered for a basketball game. miraculously, no one has died but among those shot and injured 3-year-old deonte howard, who was standing near the court when a bullet hit him in the face. his grandmother spoke yesterday about her resolve to do something, anything, in response to the violence. >> this right here should be

stamped out an all our corner every day until the violence stop. because it has to stop. >> when we hear his grooems c l grandmother's call for help, if we hear about the 13 in chicago or the 19 at a mother's day second line in new orleans, the fear, the vulnerability, the empathy we shared with the 13 in washington, d.c., the recognition of the all-american problem suddenly feels less like our problem. more like theirs. we lose track of the names and lose count of the numbers so their call for help doesn't reverberate much farther than the communities that are plagued daily by the potential and realized threat of violence, not far enough for a multiagency response to come to the rescue, to catch the notice of wall-to-wall, coast-to-coast media coverage or the attention of congress to fix a collective crisis. instead, the response to the violence is increased presence

of the very same institution that is so often implicated in the fear. it's the response that met jonathan ferrell when he was in need of help and found himself on the doorstep of a stranger last weekend. ferrell, a 24-year-old former football player at florida a&m university, had moved back home to north carolina last year to be with his fiancee. sometime before 2:30 a.m. on saturday he was driving through a rural neighborhood just outside of charlotte when he got into a car accident and had to kick out the back window to free himself from the wreckage. ferrell managed to walk a quarter mile to the nearest house, where he knocked on the door asking for help. the homeowner, a woman who was home alone with her year-old child, opened the door thinking it was her husband, but when instead she saw a man she didn't recognize, she shut the door, hit the panic button on her alarm, and placed this call to 911. >> 911. hello? >> i need help. >> where are you at? >> there's a guy breaking in the front door.

>> three officers from the charlotte-mecklenburg police department arooifd on the scene where they found ferrell walking toward the neighborhood pool. he approached them. in response, one of them fired a taser. then a second officer fired 12 shots with his gun. ten of those bullets found their mark. jonathan ferrell was unarmed when he died just a month shy of his 25th birthday. it's a story of how ferrell's life ended leaves you with an uneasy sense of deja vu it's because we have been here before. with amadou diallo, with shonn bell weather kendrick mcdade, we have been here with oscar grant and the list goes on. these are the numbers that are remembered by community who is like jonathan ferrell are banging on the door, crying out for help. the number one, one unarmed african-american man shot down by those they are told who are

supposed to be there to answer their call for help. joining me now, victoria defrancesco soto, msnbc contributor and fellow at the lbj school, the university of texas. michael denzel smith, blogger at thenation.com, and valerie core, director of ground swel, political commentator and senior fellow at auburn university. thanks for being here. michael, i want to start with you because you wrote in "the nation" this week about the note they ended. en i want to give you an opportunity to weigh in on how you read that moment of ferrell's death. >> it was disgusting and frightening as a black man in america to know that you can be looking for help and still be met with, you know, that type of -- and be charged with essentially disarming people of fear of yourself, right? because -- and it's understandable that the woman was scared. it's 2:00 this-in the morning. a stranger is knocking on your door.

but at no point does it seem that anyone says, well, maybe he actually does help. no one tries to help him in this situation, not even the police that are charged with protecting and serving. they don't assess the situation when they get there, try to figure out exactly what's going on, ask him questions, see what the situation looks like before trying to taser him. that's your first reaction. and then you shoot at him 12 times. and ten bullets hit his body. i mean, it's infuriating to think that, you know, you can be completely innocent, right, and this is the thing that frustrates me about respectability politics, right. jonathan ferrell did everything right. and in his death the narrative of how he was engaged and he had this great gpa and he was a great friend, but he did everything right. and he still met the same fate. >> this point that you made that it's perfectly reasonable for a woman at home at 2:30 in the

morning at home with her child or even to be afraid of a knock at the door is reasonable. but then there's the call to the police. and this is the moment -- and i think this is what has made me the kind of sadness and anger that i feel from you at this moment, michael, is what i've been feeling this week, is that sense that when we call on the institution, when we call on the police, when we call on our congress to do something about our need for help -- and, you know, i always want to be careful because jonathan ferrell is a person, he's not a metaphor, and yet his death stands in in this way that feels like when we call for help, instead what we get is more violence. >> and it's not just about the police officer per se but the larger police institution. why didn't the 911 caller ask the woman the questions necessary to determine whether this was, in fact, a robber, a break-in, or whether it was somebody truly asking for help? why wasn't that information then

conveyed to the police officers? the larger thing is racism. it is bluntly that. we've talked about oprah and her purse. when she walks in, what is assume in the worst. what is assumed with this man? innocent. having experienced an accident. the worst. regrettab regrettably, it's not just in the realm of potential crime but ice in the realm of everyday life. >> valerie, part of the reason i wanted you at the table for this moment is the work that you have been doing in oak creek since the mass shooting at the sikh temple there. and in part because it does feel like another one of these moments, for me almost like the 13 who were shot in chicago this week where we don't tell the story, like on the one hand, i hate the bloody nature of news and how much we talk about the violence. on the other hand, i worry that we only talk about some of the victims and not others. >> right. right. we can't afford to look away. the broader problem in our

nation is that we don't respond with the same sense of moral outrage when the victims are black and brown bodies. in the wake of oak creek, i had this hope that perhaps now our nation would respond to hate violence, it would be the turning point. the violence in oak creek was the greatest act of violence in the faith community since the 1963 church bombings in the african-american church community, which was a turning point in the civil rights movement. america's heart broke then and it mattered and it led to action. our hears should be breaking now, and we can't afford to have the same kind of moral outrage fatigue when it means that our children continue to die in city streets, whether it is children in the schoolyard or a playground on the southside of chicago or people worshipping in a sikh house of worship on a sunday morning. they demand attention and we have to start looking at their stories. >> i'm glad you brought up the 1963 church bombings. we talked about it last week.

i kept thinking the fact that was part of the turning point in american public policy and american history feels like the appropriate response to the martyring of four children but that somehow now, this notion of somehow fatigue or that we just can't go on or we can't do anything, why do we have such a sense -- and i want to talk about this when we get back -- that there's nothing we can do, when, in fact, it feels like there still are things we can do? state stai right there. [ phil ] when you have joint pain and stiffness... accomplishing even little things can become major victories. i'm phil mickelson, pro golfer. when i was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, my rheumatologist prescribed enbrel for my pain and stiffness, and to help stop joint damage. [ male announcer ] enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis,

lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. you should not start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. tell your doctor if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have symptoms such as persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. since enbrel helped relieve my joint pain, it's the little things that mean the most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists.

i've got a big date, but my sinuses are acting up. it's time for advil cold and sinus. [ male announcer ] truth is that won't relieve all your symptoms. new alka seltzer plus-d relieves more sinus symptoms than any other behind the counter liquid gel. oh, what a relief it is.

we're back and trying to work through the complicated nature of the connection between race and guns and violence and

death in this country. and also, you know, there are moments when we're putting together this show and we feel a sense of trepidation about how sort of how the conversation we want to have may get received. this is certainly one of those moments because we don't want to be in a position of saying you're white and deserve to die. none of those things make sense here. i want to show, though, two pieces of day that here. one is intraracial violence. a black victim with a black offender is about 94% of crime. and a white victim with a white offender is 86%. 86% of the crime committed against xhit whyte people is committed by a white person. 94% of crime committed against african-americans is committed by an african-american. and it's important to me in part because our great anxiety is about the interracial nature of crime. that's the thing that provokes this fear. but, in fact, the vulnerability is really about the likelihood

of victimization within your own group. >> yeah, and that's about proximity. who do you live near. as much progress as we've made on the front of, you know, integration, we're still a very segregated country. so these are the communities that you live in and that's the greatest fear that you have of crime, walking down the street. i'm not going to necessarily be shot and killed by a white person, you know, but i can be fearful that, you know, there are going to be black people that may rob me. but it's an irrational fear to think that every person that i come across is, you know, particularly when we're talk about black people, that they are violent criminals out to get me. and that's what the narrative becomes, and that's why there's that fear of interracial, you know, violence because we have an understanding of black people as preternaturally violent and criminal. >> the other piece of it in addition to this sort of profiling piece is the concern about the police as an active potential force for good that doesn't get activated for good

because of the stories like jonathan ferrells and others where it feels like these police are as dangerous to me as any other person. >> yes. absolutely. i spent three years working in east haven, connecticut weather the latino community. i remember the first night of our very first meeting in the basement of a church in connecticut where families began to pull back their sleeves to show their scars. there were victims of brutality and assault of local police officers. i said why don't you tell your stories in public? and they said are you crazy? >> because the police. >> we can't imagine a more dangerous and risky thing to do. and it wasn't until a priest with a group of nuns with a group of yale law state of the union who is formed a coalition and waged a three-year campaign to transform that police department with the help of the department of justice, that change was possible. so i look into their eyes and i think about there's a whole segment of the population who is living and working not only in the shadows but in ways that make them feel unsafe and

unprotected. i think of looking in the eyes of young black youth in the streets of new york city who tell me they've been stopped 100 times before their 18th birthday. i think of looking into the eyes of south asian women who can't call the police on their husbands for fear of them seeing their husbandsed a bin lad ed e in the flesh. what does it mean when communities of color cannot live, work, and worship without fear? and the ones designated to protect them are not always seen as trustworthy enough to show up and do the job. >> we'll dive deep into that when we come back because i want to talk about the danzinger bridge shooting in new orleans and the fact this week the convictions were vacated and i think in many ways brings back the anxiety you were articulating. ♪

♪ we go, go, we don't have to go solo ♪ ♪ fire, fire, you can take me higher ♪ ♪ take me to the mountains, start a revolution ♪ ♪ hold my hand, we can make, we can make a contribution ♪ ♪ brand-new season, keep it in motion ♪ ♪ 'cause the rhyme is the reason ♪ ♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪

so you want to drive more safely? of smart. stop eating. take deep breaths. avoid bad weather. [ whispers ] get eight hours. ♪ [ shouts over music ] turn it down! and, of course, talk to farmers. hi. hi. ♪ we are farmers bum - pa - dum, bum - bum - bum - bum ♪ building animatronics is all about getting things to work together. the timing, the actions, the reactions. everything has to synch up. my expenses are no different. receiptmatch on the business gold rewards card synchronizes your business expenses. just shoot your business card receipts and they're automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. i'm john kaplan, and i'm a member of a synchronized world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does.

let's do some serious let's size up this. spruce up that. and let's not do any of this. let's go to school. let's go to save. and then, let's go to town. so then we can go do, absolutely nothing. let's do this. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. this echo blower. just $159 bucks.

a prosecutorial misconduct led to a call for a retrial of five police officers convicted of shooting unarmed people in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. four of the officers were convicted in 2011 after killing two people and wounding four others as they walked across new orleans' danzinger bridge in search of shelter after hurricane katrina. all the citizens shot by the police were unarmed. a fifth officer was convicted of conspiring to justify the shootings with a cover-up. in a 129-page ruling, a federal judge overturned the convictions citing witness co-errings, witness testimony, and a scandal in which three government attorneys were revealed to have posted comments about the case online. joining us now is also james peterson, msnbc contributor and director of avenuery afrikana

lehigh university. vicky, it feels like the danzinger bring undoing here because of bad behavior on the part of the prosecutors still leaves communities like the one i live in in new orleans feeling like our lives mean very little in the context of police violence against those communities. >> so, police are supposed to protect us so, in this case of ferrell, we saw a lack of protection, and an assault, but also in looking to the d.c. navy yards, what i found very interesting is that that argument the nra makes that the more guns you have the safer you're going to be, the more armed people you have, but that's not true. perpetrators are the ones with guns, such as in the case with police, and why do we need more funding for teachers and guards with guns if we're seeing that many times they're the ones who perpetrate it? >> this is a tough one because what i don't want to do is say all police are bad guys and they're not part of the solution, but it does feel to me, james, like until we could begin to address the realities and that sort of institutional

violence, then the other kinds of violence that plague our communities won't get better because there can be no partnership with police if you believe that in the context of the storm, when you are seeking shelter and walking across the bridge and a 17-year-old boy and a 40-year-old man who has mental incompetenties, who was shot in the back and killed, and now all these years later, still no justi justice. >> right. the thing to remember is there is a history of all this. the relationship between the police forces and those institutions and the communities they're charged to protect has been broken far long time. so we can go back in history and have all these sort of -- this litny of tragedies of so-called justifiable homicides, of oscar grants and shonn bells. there's a long, long range and a lot of narratives that sort of underright writhe this. we have to begin there to think about how we repair it. the proliferation of guns is what the challenge is on the other side of it. off police force that in many ways is prone to criminalize black and brown bodies, and again that has are ach and deep

history, but they do have very real challenges and proliferation of guns is one. you have the chicago police chief saying we can't have ak-47s on the streets of chicago. when you take the two sides to the coin, the capacity to criminalize black bodies like in this awful shooting at danzinger bridge and then the challenges that police institutions face, we don't want to demonize the place, we know there's challenges, but there's a wide gap across those two challenges. >> let me push back a little on this notion about the guns because chicago has i think gun laws that many gun control advocates would say are a model. the navy yard actually has gun control laws, you know, carry laws that i think many gun control advocates were saying is a model. and yet we still have these horrific acts of violence this week. >> well, it's not about chicago, you're right, as a municipality, they have very robust gun control. but when you step outside of the city, not the same. 40% of gun sales are private, which means they don't require universal background checks. those are the guns getting into

the hands of criminals or would-be criminals. you can have a city with robust gun control, but when you step outside the confines of that city, there are private dealers who don't have to succumb to those deals. >> it's a cocktail. we've seen a number of shootings in the past couple months, but they have different components. there's the mental illness. there's pathologies of poverty. there's gun laws. so, you know, and it's difficult. we want to say what is at the root cause of this? but it's much more complicated. >> i want to drill -- right, but i want to drill down to the history here, though, because you've brought up the history here. 2005, kath hit end of august of 2005, but it had been an extraordinary summer. that summer, 2005, the senate actually apologized for never having passed anti-lynching legislation. in that same summer, the state of illinois exhumed the body of emmett till in order to close that case. and mississippi actually reopened the case of the murder of the three civil rights workers. and it felt like -- i mean, in

august of 2005 i was feeling a little like, all right, we might be on the citizenship track here, right? and then a matter of two months later kath hits, people are left in their homes to drown. they are labeled by the mass media as refugees. and then a group of them crossing a bridge is murdered by police. and i keep feeling like, okay, yes, gun control is part of it, but there is something else here that is deeply about our unwillingness to see or grapple with the history and humanity of these people who are dying, who are just far too often black and brown people. >> that's the dance of freedom. right? we want to go two steps forward, but then we get five steps back. i think we have to look at all of that, because it is about the guns in most of these instances because these communities are have guns, they ear protecting themselves, right, they're trying to protect from their neighbors and from the police. then the police see them as a problem and they ratchet up their force. so then the citizens go and they

get ak-47s. the police get tanks. so at what point does this escalation of this -- where -- it starts with the guns and it starts with our devotion to the idea of guns as a sense of freedom. >> but it's also this question about who counts as american, right? we have these stereotypes floating in the air where we have the stereotype of the african-american as potentially criminal, of the sikh or muslim-american as potentially terrorist, the latino-american as potentially illegal. it's not until we undo the stereotypes that have been wired into us by our media, our politics, our history, that we can start to find the real root causes. but to start, absolutely, we need to start with getting guns off the street because the evidence shows that countries with higher rates of gun ownership have the highest rates of gun violence. in the u.s., we know that states with stricter gun safety have the least violence. start there. >> and the problem of having to whistle vivaldi where he says if you were black, you have to whistle vivaldi in order to

demonstrate respectability because a black men whistling vi valuely isn't going to harm you. up next, how the navy yard shooting complicates our understanding of race and mental health. okay ladies, whenever you're ready. thank you. thank you. i got this. oh, no, i'll get it! let me get it. uh-uh-uh. i don't want you to pay for this. it's not happening, honey. let her get it. she got her safe driving bonus check from allstate last week. and it's her treat. what about a tip? oh, here's one... get an allstate agent. nice! [ female announcer ] switch today and get two safe driving bonus checks a year for driving safely. only from allstate. call 866-905-6500 now. here we go! hold on man. is that a leak up there? that's a drip. whoo. okay. aah. now that's a leak. that is a leak! and if you don't have allstate renters insurance... game over. [ female announcer ] protect your valuables from things like water damage for as low as $4 a month when you add renters insurance to your allstate auto policy.

call 866-905-6500 now. plus, drivers who switched saved an average of $498 a year. just a few more ways allstate is changing car insurance for good. [ female announcer ] call an allstate agent and get a quote now.

obviously there are similarities between the mass shootings this week. other than the number of people shot, the shooter. in both cases the single gunman at the navy yard and at the chicago basketball court, the shooters were african-american men, raising complicated issues about race around issues of guns and mental health. joining me is terry williams, a mental health advocate and author of "black pain: it just looks like we're not hurting." >> not hurting. right. >> when, in fact, clearly -- right. when, in fact, clearly we are. in the case of the navy yard we

went immediately to a conversation about mental health in part because that shooter had an evidentiary history of mental health concerns. but my bet is that there are also other ways of measuring mental health and mental illness that the young men who committed this act of violence in chicago likely also are suffering from. >> well, yes. the fact of the reality is all of us walking the planet are walking that fine line. all of us are born with unresolved pain, wounds, trauma, and scars that have been passed on us to by our parents and no one is getting any help. nobody suunderstands what the signs of depression are, looks like, sounds like, feels like, because we see it as a weakness, a character flaw, to say you have mental illness. i sit here before everyone today, having acknowledged taking my antidepressant pill this morning. do you know what i'm saying? you just never say. the reality is as men and especially as young black men, you are born, raised, and suck

it up, taught to suck it up, to be a man, to shot show emotion, to not go tell your mommy anything because if you do you will eventually be heard as a month maa mama's boy. >> and the challenge here is nobody wants to make an apology or excuse for any of these shooters. right? i want to be very clear. not that. but i do want to say, so how do i make my community safe? in one way, you can say one way is to take the arms, take the guns from anyone who has this kind of long history. but that's clearly insufficient. so the question of how else can i make a healthier community so that we are a safer community -- >> i want to back up a little bit because i want to be clear that most folk who have mimss or mental challenges are not violent. >> are not violent. >> just like most african-americans are not violent. >> how do we have the conversation without stigmatizing the dreadlocked black male who's going through pain? that's a really important question. the juxtaposition of these two

shootings i think allows us to have a moment where we can do that. how can we have this conversation about the role that young black men in particular play in terms of mental health as well as in terms of gun violence without stigmatizing either. >> just looking at the numbers of the race of u.s. mass shooters and of course we know that the majority of them are white shooters, 44 cases, overwhelmingly, 11 cases of african-americans, six asian, four latino, one native american, and some we don't know the race. but the notion that the stigma is primarily on white men is not evidence. >> doesn't work. >> the reality is i think to get to the core of the issue we have to learn to be more human toward one another. smartphones, the texting, the this, that, and the other, there's a comedian louis c.k. who said recently he's not trying to teach us to be a child but raise them to be the adult they need to be. but we move through our lives. we don't look at each other, we

don't smile at each other, we act as if we don't matter. if you remember recently, antoinette tuff, the african-american woman in atlanta who -- it was the spirit of god and humanity in her that talked to that young man that was getting ready to shoot up the campus. >> right. >> and yet i want to be careful that in the context of all the policies we can pass, a new i fon this week, i don't think that will generate more mass murders but what i do think could create more violence is the s.n.a.p. vote that takes food off the table. >> yes. >> that both ends violence and makes people already in poverty hungry, right. >> exactly. >> so on one hand, i hear you and there's a way in which i constantly look at the i fon means you're not connecting with humans. on the other hand, i'm also more worried in the way of taking food off the table or keeping opportunity from being possible. >> or access to health care off the table. those are two really sinister votes. the thing is people need to understand this. when we're talking about s.n.a.p. and talking about access to health care, we're

talking about violence in our communities, because violence in our communities comes from that structural inequality, the economic inequality. you take $4 billion a year, literally saying some of our elderly, some children are going to become not just impoverished but they're going to have food insecurity as a part of their everyday livelihood. i don't think the politicians in washington, d.c., think about that. $40 billion over ten years is a tremendous amount to take out of the s.n.a.p. program. >> it's health and poverty are contributing factors that exacerbate mental health issues, as someone with anxiety disorder and a history of depression. we have to broaden our understanding, particularly when we're talking about black community, what mental illness looks like. so when we're talking about chicago, talking about detroit, we're talking about these young black men in the streets killing one another, why are we not talking about that as suicidal? >> and at every turn you know that you do not matter on this planet. >> yeah. >> you don't matter. >> when your congress votes in

ways that make you feel as though you don't matter, it's not just paranoia, it's policy. michael denzel smith and terry williams, thanks for being here. more still to come because i've got an interview with massachusetts governor deval patrick and his daughter, katherine. so much fun for me. first, the man who was leading the fight to leave millions of americans hungry. i got a letter. have a seat. thank you orville and wilbur... ...amelia... neil and buzz: for teaching us that you can't create the future... by clinging to the past. and with that: you're history. instead of looking behind... delta is looking beyond. 80 thousand of us investing billions... in everything from the best experiences below... to the finest comforts above. we're not simply saluting history... we're making it.

♪ we go, go, we don't have to go solo ♪ ♪ fire, fire, you can take me higher ♪ ♪ take me to the mountains, start a revolution ♪ ♪ hold my hand, we can make, we can make a contribution ♪ ♪ brand-new season, keep it in motion ♪ ♪ 'cause the rhyme is the reason ♪ ♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪

see who does good work and compare costs. it doesn't usually work that way with health care. but with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, treatment options and estimates for how much i'll pay. that helps me, and my guys, make better decisions. i don't like guesses with my business, and definitely not with our health. innovations that work for you. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

you work. and you want to get an mba. but going back to school is hard... because you work. now, capella university offers a revolutionary new way to get your degree. it's called flexpath and it's the most direct path, leveraging what you've learned on the job and focusing on what you need to know so you can get a degree at your pace. and graduate at the speed of you. flexpath from capella university learn more at capella.edu listen, for weeks my team has been begging me to write a letter to one specific politician. personally, i thought that perp wasn't even worth it. we only have so much time and we try not to feed the trolls looking for attention. but after thursday's decision to cut s.n.a.p., i thought it was

time to reach out, because clearly this person is now fully deserving of a letter, and that is why this week's letter goes to republican congressman and house majority leader eric cantor. dear mr. cantor, it's me, melissa. now, i'm not going to quibble with you over your philosophical approach. that would take days, and again, we're dealing in tv time. but let's deal in the facts. the beginning of your speech on the house floor in thursday's vote was kind of right? >> this bill is designed to give people a hand when they need it most, and most people don't choose to be on food stamps. >> if you're talking about the intent of the original bill, i can agree, because that bill was meant to give people a hand when they need it most. but if you mean the new bill, the one that you spirited? sir, mr. cantor, have a seat. because according to the congressional budget office, your bill cuts $39 billion over

the next decade, and as a result of those cuts, 3.8 million people will lose their s.n.a.p. benefits in 2014. so sticking with the facts, in your speech you talked about what certain participants in the s.n.a.p. program will have to do to get benefits. >> the truth is anyone subjected to the work requirements under this bill who are able-bodied, who are able-bodied under 50, will not be denied benefits if only they are willing to sign up for the opportunity for work. >> mr. cantor, you also noted the demagoguery and misinformation around the work requirement of this bill and can i just say, have a seat, because mr. pot, you are worse than the kettle who complained about the pot. you make it sound like sure,

poor people will give you food but only if you're willing to work for it. what gave you the impression that poor people don't want to work, sir? they want to eat. and at a time when most of your fellow republicans are worried about their districts, you seem distracted and have forgotten about yours. so let me remind you, take a look at this interactive map on the website of feeding america, the nationwide network of food banks. if you scroll your mouse across the map, you find out what the food insecurity levels are in all parts of the country. nationwide the figure is 50 million. 50 million americans living at risk of not knowing where their next meal will come from or if it will come at all. does this look familiar, mr. cantor? this is the seventh district of virginia, your district, where 11% of your constituents, mr. cantor, approximately 85,000 people are at risk of hunger. 15% of or nearly 27,000 children who you represent are worrying about where their next meal will come from, and yet you've waged

a war to slash the very funds that feed the hungry, that include your constituents. so this isn't about curbing government waste or preventing fraud and it's not about your effort to bleed the poor and dictate how they should live and how they should qualify for food. it's about feeding the 47 million people who benefitted from the program last year and continue to need it support. if you don't understand that fact, seriously, man, have a seat. sincerely, melissa. announcer: where can an investor be a name and not a number? scottrade. ron: i'm never alone with scottrade. i can always call or stop by my local office. they're nearby and ready to help. so when i have questions, i can talk to someone who knows exactly how i trade. because i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. that's why i'm with scottrade. announcer: scottrade- proud to be ranked "best overall client experience."

the affordable care act was signed three years ago and it has survived more before its first month of full implementation that most face in a lifetime, including a supreme

court challenge and more than 40 congressional votes to repeal it. just yesterday the house struck again, passing a spending bill with no funding for obama care. attacked on all sides, this imperfect but plucky law is finally ready to strut its stuff on the national stage. and then this week, we learned that only 31% of americans in a new nbc news/washington poll think that bom caobama care is . maybe defeat. the first real shot at comprehensive health care reform americans have needed for more than 50 years. this is evan feinberg, the president of the virginia-based coalition calling itself generation opportunity and the group behind a new ad out this week depicting a creepy horror movie version of uncle sam in a doctor's office examining the private regions of 20-somethings

who secured health coverage thanks to obama care. the ads are notable because of who they target -- young adults who are critical to the success of obama care. so will this misinformation campaign finally succeed where all the other republican efforts to destroy health care have failed? join meganow are amy holmes, anchor of "the hot list" as theblaze.com, also former virginia congressman tom perriello, now president and ceo of the american progress action fund, and still with me our msnbc contributor james peterson and victoria defrancesco soto of the university of texas. so, tom, i want to start with you because these ads out of virginia are pretty intense and creepy and rapy as one might call them because of, you know, the sort of uncle sam popping up between their legs. is this part of this longer campaign that's been going on for 3 1/2 years now? >> it's certainly consistent with that, and i think lit backfire with millennials as does most of the messaging from the far right. but i think what you have here

is a real importance at this moment of getting people to enroll and understand the benefits of that. you already see young people obviously being able to stay on their family health insurance until 26. so we know this is one of the groups that benefits the most from this program being out there. and i think it is a moment where young people are just a lot smarter than the far right thinks and they're going to take the time to get real information about the things that matter to their life. >> some young people are. so, you know, just like older folks, right, there is a diversity of political and policy knowledge among millennials and that some will absolutely kind of capture that -- that is wrong and will go and find out but a whole group might be, like, whoa, that's creepy and not go and find out and that is enough to potentially kill the bill. is this a fair and reasonable way to address policy implementation, amy? >> i think certainly entertaining people while you're informing people about a law is perfectly fair. the other side does it all the time. we remember paul ryan pushing granny off the cliff during the

election. but i have to disagree with your contention that if you oppose obama care it's because somehow you're misinformed or malinformed. i think the opposition that you -- >> oh, no. >> -- you in the poll showed from krour own network, i think obama care has 44% of approval according to nbc because of this drip, drip, drip of news about how obama care is affecting people's health care premiums and -- >> no, no. i want to pause -- >> they've come out and said that obama care is destroying the 40-hour workweek. the white house has not been responsive. i've read the letter myself. >> so, amy, i absolutely agree a person, a legislator, an individual, a voter can be against obama care without being misinformed. that is certainly true. but i think these opt-out ads from virginia that seem to suggest that what getting and procuring health insurance, health insurance which we know under obama care is will mean that the 30% high they're women pay in premiums will no longer be allowed, you can't

discriminatory gender pricing, you will have access to birth-control, that is not rapey government stuff. what is -- we know, in fact -- >> the right to get condoms. the point -- >> oh, wow, amy. >> i'm willing to say it. >> so condoms actually -- condoms actually do not address what many women take birth control for, which includes health -- >> -- also subsidized apart from obama care. >> amy, this is the point about -- >> the point of that is privacy. >> the people of virginia care if republicans in virginia cared about privacy, then transvaginal mcdonald would not have been doing what that commercial suggests which is trying to insert the government of virginia into -- >> pricing when it comes abortion about -- >> i care about sprooif when it comes to women's reproductive rights, if ul stop. which include the choices women make to have children or no to not have children without interference --

>> as i do i, and that's what the young people in that ad were saying. uncle sam should not be involved in your health care. >> that is simply untrue. >> setting up these exchanges does not mean the government is going to be making intervening decisions in young people or anyone's health care. also, let's be very clear even about the nbc news obama care poll. we know about the polls and how they operate. when you break whaup the benefits are of affordable health care or access, people are in favor of certain components of it. when you frame it as obama care it becomes a political discussion because of ads like this and the two-step we do in washington, d.c., around policies. at the end of the day, when you look at the exchanges that have been set up, the one in oregon, new york -- >> extremely popular. >> competition is good and prices are coming down. even though medicare costs are not coming down, they're not growing as quickly as they have been, which is part of this whole process. any policy like this, this size, that requires this amount of people to enter into it, yes, we need young people to enter into it in order for the system to be

flush. right? anything that's this size requires a lot of work and requires effort. when you have sabotage coming at it,ite going to have challenges. >> when you say young people have to get into the system to be flush, young people are crosse subsidizing older people. >> yes. of course. >> paying more than what they're getting. >> no, no, no. it's about spreading -- >> that is the structure of obama care. >> of course it is, because it's about -- >> pay more than what he what they're getting. >> it's about spreading risk so everyone at this table clearly understands the way insurance companies work is that if we are going to create a situation where if you have a pre-existing condition, you can nonetheless get insurance, which is one of the primary -- the only way to do that is -- >> paying more than they're getting. >> no, no, but not in the long term. the notion that we would in fact engage as young people to generate a system that brings down health care costs for all is a perfectly reasonable part.

still to come, the reason republicans are willing to ris ak government shutdown. governor deval patrick and his daughter talk to me about her coming out. has it's ups and downs. seasonal... doesn't begin to describe it. my cashflow can literally change with the weather. anything that gives me some breathing room makes a big difference. the plum card from american express gives your business flexibility. get 1.5% discount for paying early, or up to 60 days to pay without interest, or both each month. i'm nelson gutierrez and i'm a member of the smarter money. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. so, i'm working on a cistern intake valve, and the guy hands me a locknut wrench. no way! i'm like, what is this, a drainpipe slipknot?

wherever your business takes you, you can save money with progressive commercial auto. [ sighs ] [ flo speaking japanese ] [ shouting in japanese ] we work wherever you work. now, that's progressive. call or click today. her busy saturday begins with back pain, when... hey pam, you should take advil. why? you can take four advil for all day relief. so i should give up my two aleve for more pills with advil? you're joking right? for my back pain, i want my aleve. i remember thinking there's a lot i have to do... check my blood sugar, eat better. start insulin. today i learned there's something i don't have to do anymore. my doctor said with levemir® flexpen... i don't have to use a syringe and a vial. levemir® flexpen comes prefilled with long-acting insulin taken once daily for type 2 diabetes to help control high blood sugar. dial the exact dose. inject by pushing a button.

no drawing from a vial. no refrigeration for up to 42 days. levemir® (insulin detemir [rdna origin] injection) is not recommended to treat diabetic ketoacidosis. do not use levemir® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which may cause symptoms such as sweating, shakiness, confusion, and headache. severe low blood sugar can be serious and life threatening. ask your health care provider about alcohol use, operating machinery, or driving. other possible side effects include injection site reactions. tell your health care provider about all medicines you take and all of your medical conditions. get medical help right away if you experience serious allergic reactions such as body rash, trouble with breathing, fast heartbeat, or sweating. flexpen® is insulin delivery my way. covered by most insurance plans, including medicare. ask your health care provider about levemir® flexpen today. jron: i'm sorry, who are you?nt we all like? jc: i'm your coworker! c'mon guys, i'm driving. hey, you guys comfortable? it's best-in-class rear legroom. no way we'd fit this comfortably in your car, dan.

ron: it's ron. jc: ron... and the passat has no-charge scheduled carefree maintenance... wish stevens had "carefree maintenance." right? that guy is so uptight. stevens: i'm "stevens." jc: ron stevens... right... vo: right now get the 2013 passat for 0% apr for 60 months with optional down payment match of up to $500. welcome back. well, they did it. every house republican on friday voted to fund the government and avert a shutdown on october 1st just as long as we, you know, defund that obama care law. no biggie. the gop house members took a victory lap complete with hooths around hollers after the 230-189 vote. >> listen, this is hurting our constitue constituents. it's hurting the american people. at a time when the american economy is barely eking along,

wages aren't increasing, new jobs aren't available, what are we doing? putting more cost and more inconvenience on the american people. so, our message to the united states senate is real simple -- the american people don't want the government shutdown and they don't want obama care. >> speaker john boehner sounded pretty confident there. worth noting, though, that this is quite a departure from what he said in march. >> if we were to put obama care into the c.r. and send it to the senate, we were risking shutting down the government. that is not our goal. do you want to ris it can full faith and credit of the united states government over obama care? that's a very tough argument to make." >> but, hey, it looks as though speaker boehner and his fellow house republicans are now trying to make that argument against obama care, but the president isn't having it. he called the speaker friday night and made it clear he would not be negotiating over the next fiscal challenge -- raising the debt limit. and there's no chance president obama is going to sign a congressional spending

resolution defunding his signature health care law. the president reacted to friday's house vote while speaking at a ford plant outside kansas city. >> unfortunately, right now the debate that's going on in congress is not meeting the test of helping middle-class families. it's just -- they're not focused on you. they're focused on politics. they're focused on trying to mess with me. they're not focused on you. they're not focused on you. >> and i'd argue republicans aren't just out to mess with the president. they're also betweeni inin inin tweaking a few of their own in the senate. the hashtag was not so much a message for democrats like harry reid but for senator ted cruise,

who aired his doubts that the democratically controlled senate could pass a measure defunding obama care after he pushed them to do just that. the anger exploded on twitter with tim griffin of arkansas writing wednesday, "so far sen republicans are good at getting facebook likes and town halls, not much else. do something." sean duffy of wisconsin wrote, "house agrees to send c.r., congressional resolution, to senate that defunds obama care. senator ted cruise and mike lee refuse to fight. wave white flag and surrender." i am choosing not to delve into the ridiculousness of the world's democracy discussing key policy issues on a social media site, but it's worth listening to how real this got when we heard this shortly before friday's vote from congressman peter king of new york. >> something we have to do, a step in the right direction, and hopefully it will be a major step in letting people know that ted cruise is a fraud and he'll no longer have any influence in the republican party. >> you said after this vote you

could start ignoring him. do you think it's true? >> i hope so. i hope people get the message this guy is bad for the party. >> amy holmes anchor of the hot list at blaze j.com. tom perriello, and victoria defrancesco soto and james peterson. vicky, twitter is great for lots of things, twitter is emoting because we were playing the rapey song to go with the rapey commercial, right, all fine, feels like a fine way to use social media. but what doesn't is like the idea that we are having a massive party infighting going on, like i just feel like what has happened to our congress at this point? am i meant to take it seriously? >> democracy is about coalition building. it's about legislating wh, but we've come to a screeching halt. a lot of the emphasis on ted cruise. he's fascinating politically to watch because what's happened is he's become a pace car and the republican party.

so i don't think he can really take him seriously. i don't think, you know, in terms of his presidential run or in terms of what he does in congress, but what he's doing is he keeps pulling the party further and further to the right, hence more and more stalemate. so i think this is the key of why ted cruise is such the linchpin of understanding the republican intraparty politics. >> you were in the congress relatively briefly, but you were there long enough to sort of watch this sort of thing happen. is this the new normal we ought to be expecting from our congress? >> it's a really dangerous level of dysfunctionality. they used to joke that the opponents of the democrats were not republican bus the senate. we're get back to that a little but you're talking about real consequences. the other thing is there will be this show about the obama care defunding which pretty much everyone agrees is an act. but the question is does that distract us from the underlying budget issue, which is then we end up with a continuing resolution at the sequester levels that cut off the economic recovery and hurting working

middle-class families. at the same time we can joke about or not joke about this fight, but underneath are real budget numbers with real implications for jobs and things like food stamps that you were talking about earlier. so we're talking now, even if we put in the presequester numbers, the budget control act numbers, those are already below the original paul ryan budget in terms of the discretionary numbers we're talking about. i think it's important to follow these politics because they matter but also their real economic impacts. >> this is important to me. sequester is bad economically. sequester has created circumstances that are taking dollars out of the economy. we know that it's bad for national defense. we know it's bad for research and development. sequester is just these across-the-board cuts, particularly at a time when it's ticking down, but unemployment is not. how is it that republicans at this point can continue to justify this sort of deficit hawkishness as the deficit is declining when with what we need to be doing here is stimulating an economy that is sort of stuck

like it's moving but only very slowly? >> well, i would imagine republicans would say part of the reason why the deficit is going down is because of these cults. i don't agree with across-the-board cuts. they should be smart and targeted. republicans argue for that, but the president insisted they must be across the board because he wanted to make a political point. back to the infighting. >> that's not what happened. there was a sequester decision that was made. >> it was the president's idea, a huge fight, across the board, john boehner said we can do this in a targeted way, the president said no. >> amy, that is simply not true. >> back to the infighting. >> that said, that is simply not true. we know both sides purposely bound themselves to sequester because it was supposed to be so awful, that no one would throw themselves off the cliff. >> two is republicans saying let's do this in a targeted way. moving on to the infighting, what i would say about this is republicans are forgetting ronald reagan's maxim -- no enemies to the right. i think it's bad for the party

to be having these twitter explosions and all of this being played out in public. i think there is a way for both sides, the house and the senate side, to work together with common goals. so i am critical of republicans and how they're conducting themselves with this entire obama care defunding fight. >> i wouldn't underestimate ted cruise, though, because i think what we're seeing him do is he's used the house republicans to essential essentially establish his right-wing bona fides. he'll need those for electoral politics when it comes time to galvanize his campaign. it seems sinister and cal cla tif, but at the end of the day, they're saying this crazy stuff about him now, he'll still be a formidable force for the presidential run. >> i am still enough of a political scientist to believe david mayhew when he says congress members are single-minded seekers of re-election. they're not crazy or stupid. we may or may not agree with their policies. the question is what is it that they believe is the re-election

cal cluls here, tom? why is this behavior behavior that makes them think this is what my stilts want and need? >> this is part of what's weird to me is they're not even talking about deficit reduction or reducing the size of government. >> it's coming down. >> they know, a, the deficit is going down, b, the jobs crisis is the real crisis and they don't have a plan for that. and because when they try to put their own budget together and put details on it they couldn't even get the republicans agree on what that would mean because they know there's real economic pain in their districts. they had to back off the substance of the fight and go back to the symbolic fight of obama care, a budget 15% below, with sequester 19% e below 2010 levels. they could take a victory lap about that and go to their constituents and say we cut discretionary spend big 20%. >> we're going to listen to boehner then i want you to respond to baner on some of these issues. >> the president said, you know, if we pass this law, health care

costs will go down. well, now we find out that health care costs are going up for most americans. the president said if the you like the health insurance policy that you have, you can keep it. now we found out that's not quite accurate either, and in the coming months millions of americans are going to find out it's not quite true. >> so this is the strategy. right? 3 1/2 years later, boehner is still, right, single minded figure, re-election, believes the strategy is to say we have to do this because obama care is so bad. why does he believe that? >> as an electoral matter, we saw the modern democrat who is voted for obama care, a lot of them lost their jobs in 2010, and republicans are looking at that as an electoral strategy. we also have four democrat senators who are very vulnerable um for re-election in 2014. we're talking about mark prior, mary landrieu, and republicans i think in a savvy way are saying, look, we are funding the government but we'll make the senate democrats take a vote we've already seen play out as -- >> are we getting

outstrategized? >> i absolutely agree with you on, that because what's going to happen when a mary landrieu's feet is held to the fire, i think there's a longer-term strategy here. i think the republican have their eye on the senate. >> absolutely. >> and they know that even though obama care will not be defunded by this pr strategy, they are going to get -- >> no, but, right, this is -- this is key because i think that the -- you know, the default is to just say, oh, they're just out of their minds, destroying their party. but anytime you think they're destroying their party, no, they're not. this is their strategy. >> john boehner did not want to do this. his calculation goes back to 2010, the biggest driver in that election was a weak economy. incumbents do not like to run in a weak economy. they know if they shut the government down that makes the recovery more fragile. >> so everybody, keep your eyes on this because this will undoubtedly continue to be an issue. when we come back, i had this incredible conversation this

week with massachusetts governor deval patrick and his daughter on the issue of coming out. thanks to amy holmes for joining us today. when we come back, a little more with the patricks. [ male announcer ] when it comes to doing what you love, more is better. that's why we designed the all-new nissan versa note, with more technology, to get you into, and out of, tight spots. and more space so that you always have your favorite stuff. and just for good measure, an incredibly efficient 40 mpg highway. so that when you're doing more, you're spending less. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪ how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed much is the official retirement age.

♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪ this is the creamy chicken corn chowder. i mean, look at it. so indulgent. did i tell you i am on the... [ both ] chicken pot pie diet! me too! [ male announcer ] so indulgent, you'll never believe they're light. 100-calorie progresso light soups. you want a way to help minimize blood sugar spikes. support heart health. and your immune system. now there's new glucerna advance with three benefits in one. [ male announcer ] new glucerna advance. from the brand doctors recommend most. the next day, we sprayed febreze air effects and led in real people. i'd say it was very pleasant. flowers everywhere. oh! [ chuckles ] febreze did a really great job. impressive. febreze air effects eliminates tough odors for good.

and try febreze stick & refresh. designed to stick to eliminate odors anywhere. simply click, peel off the strip and attach to surfaces in your house. febreze stick & refresh, another way to breathe happy.

a congressional candidate ad for massachusetts' fifth congressional district has turned the concept of coming out into political comedy. the candidate is openly gay, but that's not what he had to confess to his own tea party dad. >> i'm carl sortinoened i'll never forget that conversation with my dad. >> that's me. >> i had to hell pim. >> wait for this. >> that i was a massachusetts liberal. >> and he's proud of it. >> i won't give up on the

assault weapons ban. >> or universal background checks or ban high-capacity magazines. >> some things you don't stop fighting for. also the right to choose, equal pay for women and equal rights for, well, everybody. >>'s been like this for 35 years. >> why i approve this message. and i still love you, dad. >> me, too, son. >> i love that ad. it is getting all the headlines this week. but there's another massachusetts political family that's been dealing with issues of politics, sexuality, generational difference and public versus private life and that family is massachusetts' first family, governor deval patrick already fighting for lbgt rights when he became the bay state's first african-american governor. and then his youngest daughter, katherine, came out. yesterday i had the chance to sit with the two of them at a forum. >> it's funny because everyone knew i was gay before i knew. i mean, it was not a surprise to anybody.

it was almost they told me. my favorite word was the "l" word. i told my mom and dad to come into the kitchen. i was so nervous. i told them i love you but i have to tell you something. i'm a lesbian. and my dad's iconic sentence after that was -- i'm sorry. i didn't preface it with we were making lunch at the time. his next sen tes was, so do you want ham or tuna on your sandwich? i was, like, wait, what? >> won you over? >> did i tell you that one time -- >> no. you -- you watched the first episode of "queers folk." >> that's right. that's right. >> i told him i wouldn't watch it with him but he could borrow it. i came downstairs and he was like -- he was, like, i appreciate it but i'm not sure this is for me. >> i also had the chance to ask

katherine patrick and her father about the political priorities of her generation and the public response to the current political climate. >> we're a changing generation, and we are, you know -- people my age are really looking for someone who's authentic and you can kind of smell that authenticity. you know when someone is selling us a list of, you know, stuff. i won't swear on tv. we are definitely more drawn to the politicians who will come and say i'm negotiating on the things that matter but i'm not negotiating on what's right and what's wrong. >> i think that we are as a society checked out, not the people in this room but an awful lot of people have checked out of politics because we see a fraud, right. everybody recognizes a fraud. and we're so accustomed to it, we're just dead. >> right.

>> should we embrace the word "liberal"? do you think liberal is a word that -- i mean, it's a word we've largely moved away from, but would we be able to say the other "l" word? >> yeah. i mean, i don't have any problem being call ad lib ral. the problem with many of these terms like much of political discourse is it's stale. it's not descriptive anymore. seriously. the gop calling themselves conservative. >> yeah. >> that's a radical agenda. there's nothing conservative about that. my problem with the terms is not that i'm uncomfortable with them. it's just that they're not complete. and i don't want to be put in a box. i think most people don't. >> may not want to be put in a box. the question is does he want anyone else to get a chance to check a box next to his name? what does the political future hold for governor patrick? >> can i just -- >> what? >> la, la, la, la.

>> there is a whole generation who is hungry for exactly the thing that you told me you represent. and i hear your youngest daughter saying, yeah, it was tough, but we made it through, we're okay. you going to run for president? >> no. but i -- i wanted to -- >> no. >> no what? >> no running for president. >> okay. i'm going to finish my second term. we don't have term limits but i'm not going to run again. my wife, diane, i put it really nicely in an interview when she said that our friends and family have been patient with us. >> yep. >> and we need to get back into private life before they lost patience with us. and i promised, and so i'm going to find a job in a year and a half and go back into private life and maybe one day come back into public life. we'll see. >> you said no, no, no. what's that response? >> not right now. because he did promise us after we'd give him two terms, then go

back to private life. but i'm not really -- i mean, i think it would be really, really hard to have a father who's the president, but my governor's kind of awesome. >> yeah. [ applause ] and i really love him. from a policy stand point. >> as a citizen. >> right. as a citizen. as the daughter, not sure about that. >> the rest of my conversation with governor deval patrick of massachusetts and his brilliant daughter, katherine, is on mh pcsshow.com. we'll look at how deep the embrace of the liberal label goes not just in massachusetts but throughout political life in the u.s. little generational conversation when we come back.

[ male announcer ] marie callender's knows you may not have time to roll out a perfectly flaky crust that's made from scratch. or mix vegetables with all white meat chicken and homemade gravy. but marie callender's does. just sit down and savor. marie callender's. it's time to savor.

but with advair, i'm breathing better. so now i can help make this a great block party. ♪ [ male announcer ] advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory

and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. ask your doctor if including advair could help improve your lung function. [ male announcer ] advair diskus fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder. get your first prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd.com. all your important legal matters in just minutes. protect your family... and launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side.

could it be the beginning of a massive left-ward trend spurred by the progressiveness of the millennial generation? that was the claim made in a recent piece in "the daily beast" by political writer peter binhart. he argues that millennials herald an entirely new, much more liberal political generation. he points to the economic circumstances under which they are building their lives, high unemployment, low wages, disappearing benefit, as the factors that will most impact their political leanings throughout their lives. i agree that those are the factors impacting their lives. but my question -- how will millennials in future generations react to coming of

age in this cruddy economy? they may push for more government services, more regulation, or taking on wall street. or they might do something different. they might ultimately, as have generations before them, as they come of age, become more conservative, just like the boomer generation did. back with us at the table now is valarie kaur, who gets to represent millennials at the table today. in our friend's piece, it's a thoughtful, empirical piece, reminded me so much of the things i've heard say about what you call the shadow generation. >> yes. i love this piece because i think it presents an accurate portrait of what i see when i'm on the road, that millennials are shaping a new future of politics in america, that our openness, our diversity, our modes of self-expression, we are the new "we," so there's going to be a new way. it remains to be determined, however, what that new way. he says this is going to change politics in america in terms of the political system. we're seeing new candidates come up who represent the

progressivism of the millennial generation. but i'm seeing a lot of millennial who are choosing to opt out of the system. we've come of age in a time of political and economic instability, and barack obama embodied our diversity and so we flooded behind him in mass numb numbers. but we've seen those numbers of engaged political millennials decline since 2008 by 6%, the number of independents has grown so, will millennials opt out of the political system? will we choose to pursue solutions outside of government? or will we reject it, reform it, replace it? that question is still an open question. >> valarie, i'm happy to hear you say that. you are one of my favorite military militaries. some of my best friends are millennials. nearly all of my producers are millennials. and so i read the piece and i thought, well, maybe, but then the skepticism of my political science background jumps in. i just wanted to read this quote from rick pearlstein who wrote i think thoughtfully in response in "the nation."

he writes "another scenario looks like this. young citizens motivated by left-leaning passions run into a brick wall again and again and again trying to turn their convictions into power." then you end up potentially with the opt out. >> that's right. this is the thing. one of the brick walls are some of the policies of the obama administration or the perception on the part of millennials that the obama administration is not really a liberal administration, more centrist or moderate nap's a brick wall. it will take politicians like elizabeth warren, people fighting the battles they see centering around equality and fairness, this is a generation deeply invested in the principles of america, equal access, no matter your background, your sexuality. there's a test here. i'm very excited about -- i love this piece because i'm very -- >> because we want to believe it. >> also, we have students -- >> right. i understand, but there's so much excitement because i feel like this generation does have an opportunity. >> but i think it's also coming

from the top down. i think the millennials are your grassroots passion, but i do think the democrats, progressives, liberals have gotten smarter about messaging. they have started to embrace terms. they said okay, obama care was pejorative. we're going to embrace it and own it. the dreerms, the war on women, republicans have had a leg up on democrats for a long time in terms of framing and rhetoric. and that has shifted public opinion. so i think that the ds up top are reframing the debate and the millennials, if they choose to, because they may not choose to, they may be apathetic, can follow in that footsteps. >> real quick, just to underline that point, i want to look at historically what we've seen because this generation question, this is -- like the question is, is it about generation or is it about life psych snl and so when we look at the life cycle question, we look at partisan identification of the generations, millennials in terms of democrats right now are 41%. the gen-xers in 1994 were at

30%, the boomers in '74 were at 47%. the silent generation of 1956 were at a 45%. so actually the boomers and that silent generation were actually more likely to be democrats when they were this age. this is the story, when you're young, you're liberal, as you age, pay more taxes, you become more conservative. >> the millennials don't think democrats are conservative anymore. that's why they're in the green party and other progressive movements. they've not positioned themselves as a liberal party for young voters. >> the optout option is going to be more about why is this in messaging. in the '90s, the job was to appeal to the independent voters and take your base for granted. because of the nature of our base today, you can't win without your base and the base turnout. if millennials threaten not to show up and we see this in off-year elections, we're going to see this down the road, those democrats are not going to win those races. i actually think the millennial power includes that optout option, making these folks say,

okay, it's not going to be enough to just do the rhetoric though messaging is important. we want to see you actually come out with something that's got some meat behind it. >> you need grassroots. you need the millennials to populate the infrastructure. you can't have one without the other. >> but will they, right? we have a huge gap between the failing institutions that we have inherited, the criminal justice system, the economy, the political system. >> that's right. >> is the two-tier political system even one we can populate with our ideals, our energy? so far the ways we've seen millennials change the social landscape has been in the grassroots arena through online, new innovative entrepreneurial technologies. look how we've dominated social media and look at how our voices in social immediate have changed the way media works in the country, music. >> did just report on a twitter battle going on in congress. i want to talk about exactly this, about occupy, right? because the other moment where we saw this potential opt in, and i want to think about where are we now on that question of

occupy. stay with us just a bit. there was a big birthday this week. most folks completely missed it. but it was two-year-old on occupy. mine was earned in djibouti, africa. 2004. vietnam in 1972. [ all ] fort benning, georgia in 1999. [ male announcer ] usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve military members, veterans, and their families is without equal. begin your legacy, get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve. more is better. that's why we designed the all-new nissan versa note, with more technology, to get you into, and out of, tight spots. and more space

so that you always have your favorite stuff. and just for good measure, an incredibly efficient 40 mpg highway. so that when you're doing more, you're spending less. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪

as we talk about young voter who is identify with the other "l" word, liberal, this week marked the two-year anniversary of the beginning of occupy wall street when mostly young activists camped out in a park in manhattan's financial district to protest growing income inequality, high unemployment, and the lack of prosecution against big banks whose practices led to the financial crisis. similar encampments have spurred up in cities across the country often leading to clashes with local police. as we were thinking about this two-year anniversary of occupy, i had some real critiques of

occupy when it was occurring. one was about its durability. i wonder, tom, at this point two years later do we feel like there was a success in rebranding, a success in engaging the discourse, or do we see it as there's no more encampment so it's a failure? >> there are huge implications of occupy. i think it moved the can conversation from deficit reduction to jobs. i this ti president ran on a more populist message for re-election and move into the criticism of bane and other things with mitt romney. you see a democratic party, particularly the young gin ration coming up through ranks, who identifies the urgency of the economy. that runs smack into the reality of a congress that won't support even the tiniest of revenue. >> right. >> but i also think you see other things. the groups that have really remained powerful over the years like a planned parent tood provides a service as well as understanding the importance of politics. i think you're seeing lots of offshoots from occupy. some are saying how can we stop

foreclosures in this neighborhood or help this family that's struggling with profiling in criminal justice? so you're seeing that spirit go into some of these direct service areas, and i think where a candidate meets that, steps up and actually does seem reel rheal to people, folks will come in behind them. >> this strikes me as so important, part of what you were talking about earlier, valarie, and that's the spirit of protest often has to also be engaged with a belief of some sort of institution. it may not be the government-sanctioned institutions, but it has to be a belief that there is something that we can organize that can be trusted, and i do worry that, like, the spirit of protests on the one happened, but also a sense of, like, i don't trust anybody or anything being attendant with it. >> i think what we need to remember about occupy, wasn't just that it nurtured public discourse in this new direction but that it modeled a new way of being, that those protesters sitting in the park were finding a way to take care of one another, provide health care, food, child care for one another in a way we don't see our country doing at large.

it served as a source of inspiration. this is what we see when we talk about movements over the long term. they'll show up in one place and then in another form a different way another time just months later, and the same month that occupy launched we launched groundswell, a nonprofit initiative that has 100,000 people engaged in multifaith actions using online tools. just last month the most si a cred moment of my career was the oak creek anniversary vigil. we were talking about gun violence earlier, p the vigil marking the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at the sikh temple. it was millennials. it was sikh youth who organized the vigil. they indicted thousands to come, online when national news didn't cover it, it was malt faith, christian choir, natsive american dance, sikh singing and it was political. but this is a modeling of a new way. >> right. there you go. >> to the polls for the midterms. >> give them someone to vote for. >> let me underline exactly

that. this is part of my point. he says, all right, you have this racial makeup, right, right, where he says the right-wing populism generally requires rousing white christian straight native born americans against americans who are not all of those things but among millennials there are fewer white christian elements to rouse. 848% are ethnic minorities. i like that. but people, the fact that you have different groups of people doesn't necessarily mean they engage differently. >> how do you get that power to vote in the next midterm election? what is the plan? >> right, because -- >> representing you. >> you. >> there has to be leaders in place that are actually progressive leaders that don't just talk that talk but are committed to the actual policy change. >> but why is it the millennials responsibility also become this? >> it is. >> we talked about the tea party before. this is part of how the tea

party post election of president obama, we're going to occupy here, they show up, do what americans have the right to do, put their voices out there. then they did the next step. they ran for -- so much so they're collapsing a whole edge on the republican party. why aren't the millennials running? >> -- ran for first. you keep coming back to the midterm elections. we're talking about city council races -- >> dogcatcher. >> those things matter. >> a lot. >> we have seen in the last year north carolina most dramatically how important state legislatures are nor the actual impacts on people's lives. i think instead of this idea of people first coming in with obama and thinking it's all going to come down like rain from the top -- >> local elections. >> the point about it is so important. art pope doesn't take over the legislature first. he takes over the wake county school board first. >> that's right. >> but i have to believe that the school board -- this is my point about the sense of a crumbling institution. if i think school boards are just whacked then i don't -- it does take a certain amount of

belief, a certain amount of american optimism about our elected system to show up for the polls and run for office. we'll stay right there because we'll handicap the 2016s on this question of millennials. help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger. i've got a big date, but my sinuses are acting up. it's time for advil cold and sinus. [ male announcer ] truth is that won't relieve all your symptoms. new alka seltzer plus-d relieves more sinus symptoms than any other behind the counter liquid gel. oh, what a relief it is. i just served my mother-in-law your chicken noodle soup but she loved it so much... i told her it was homemade.

everyone tells a little white lie now and then. but now she wants my recipe [ clears his throat ] [ softly ] she's right behind me isn't she? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. [ clears his throat ] [ softly ] she's right behind me isn't she? building animatronics is all about getting things to work together. the timing, the actions, the reactions. everything has to synch up. my expenses are no different. receiptmatch on the business gold rewards card synchronizes your business expenses. just shoot your business card receipts and they're automatically matched up with the charges

on your online statement. i'm john kaplan, and i'm a member of a synchronized world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. ...amelia... neil and buzz: for teaching us that you can't create the future... by clinging to the past. and with that: you're history. instead of looking behind... delta is looking beyond. 80 thousand of us investing billions... in everything from the best experiences below... to the finest comforts above. we're not simply saluting history... we're making it. no two people have the same financial goals. pnc investments works with you to understand yours

and helps plan for your retirement. talk to a pnc investments financial advisor today. ♪ getting a litted heated in the commercial break here between those of us who represent the '70s and this millennial at the table. i want to sort of play with this a little bit in part because the current language about who the front-runner for the democratic party nomination, for 2016, is, is of course the discourse is about hillary clinton. my feeling -- you know, i like plenty of things about hillary clinton, but i keep thinking, whoa, she's from the '90s or this other point. would the millennials be excited about hillary clinton, basically a moderate, a centrist like hillary clinton, or would they want an elizabeth warren? is there room on the left to challenge a relatively centrist clinton because the millennials would be looking for something new? >> yeah. >> but what happened with

hillary in 2008, remember, that hillary fought for women's rights. she got outflanked absolutely. and women, young women, who were born in the '80s and the '90s, they didn't connect with her on that issue. so that gives me doubt about how they would connect with an elizabeth warren. >> when you think about millennials in terms of leadership at the presidential level, elizabeth warren strikes me as more of a millennial lead. she's fighting the fight on economic inequality. hillary has learned but elizabeth warren -- i think ultimately for millennials it's about authenticity. there's so much cynicism for them right now and disbelief and institutions, that they need authentic candidates. warren seems to me to be more authentic. >> i'm sensing huge excitement around warren because she's willing to take on wall street and corporate interests and talk about inequality the way the clintons and the reagans have not. >> will the millennials come out

and vote forrer? hate to be a downer p. >> looking at the voting bloc, this feels about the latino vote, we can show it growing, but when you look at the generation of the millennials it is growing as a percentage of actual voters. by the time we get to 2020 they should be over a third. and they are more active overall than we were at this age in terms of actually turning out to vote, right, because you guyed showed up for president obama one and two. but it does -- and i think this is my point, though, about warren and clinton, it's not that one is younger than the other, but one reads as more -- what katherine and patrick was saying, we want somebody who we feel like is telling us the truth, not who is feeding us a line. >> yeah. >> sorry. it's about the content of the vision as well. elizabeth warren represents a vision that strikes a deeper chord among millennials. that said, millennials still may want someone who fights in a way that president obama has not fought and so there may be new interest behind hillary clinton for that reason. so i see either elizabeth warren

or hillary clinton or opting out as the three possibilities. i hope it's the first two. >> that is the other thing. >> she's built that, though. >> she has so much latino support. >> right. >> in terms of millennials and latinos -- >> these are two rock stars in the party and i think they've got a role to play and i think people are figuring out elizabeth warren's message, unabashedly progressive, resonates on main street as well. i think millennials and other ls see hillary clinton as a unique figure just in the gravitas, the seriousness, the experience she brings, and i think millennials want someone who will be able to do the job and do it well. and i think there's a lot of confidence in her. i think while it's a useful meeting to set up, i think hillary clinton has a tremendous amount of support across the board, but i think warren is setting a tone and a direction and may well do so from the senate and be able to be more of a russ feingold figure there. >> i always worry that we overall analyze election results. in the binhart piece, te he talks a lot about de blasio, the

win in new york. he says the deeper you look the stronger the evidence of de blasio's vick victory may become the defining story of america's next political era, the challenge to both parties from the left. on the one handle, i think that's a lovely story, but it's also true this is a democratic primary in new york city, and that as we say -- >> i'm from texas. >> and of course in political science you always want to go with the easiest model. so this in case, the tall white guy beats the black guy, the lesbian woman and the jewish candidate. so i don't know. maybe it's a great liberal thing or maybe it's like old-fashioned identity politics. hard to say in this moment. >> i think his family did play a role in it despite how he want to think about that. that's politics. your family plays a role in who your identity is. it worked very well for de blasio. i think progressive politics won out here because that trumped race, sexual identity, in this particular primary. >> you think this is about progressivism over identity. >> at least the perception of it. >> stop and frisk was a central

component of this election, and i really think that bloomberg overreached with stop and frisk and this was a reaction to stop and frisk regardless of who the person looked like. >> they'll look to see whether de blasio delivers on that, too, and was this just a good rhetoric play in the primary or will we see results particularly on the economy as well as stop and frisk. i think will go throughout the local and midterm elections. this crisis of jobs, the disappearance of the middle class, meaningful work particularly for millennials, is not going away. so i think that a party that puts that agenda out there, and i think binhart's right, the greatest hits from the right distracting from that -- >> so in the progressive millennial future de blasio is the mayor of new york city and elizabeth warren and deval patrick run for president and vice president. thank you too valarie kaur, james peterson, tom, and victoria defrancesco soto. up next, three jaw-dropping

words that could change the lives of millions. who uttered them and why. our very unusual foot soldier is next. ♪ i got to have faith

so this is when we bring you our weekly foot soldier, the little people who make big changes to their communities. usually our soldiers are not well-known but through determination and ingenuity have a real impact on people's lives. this week we couldn't resist highlighting a different kind you of foot soldier, someone who is a household name. our soldier this week is pope francis. we had our eye on the bish yop of rome since the day the conclave of cardinals elevated him to the papacy not just because i live in a catholic town and have a catholic husband and attended a catholic seminary that i find pope francis fascinating. the catholic church remains an institution of enormous policy

influence. like it or not, the pope matters even for the vast majority of us you who are not catholic. which why is matters that pope francis eschoos ornate papal garments for simple dress and rides around in a 1984 renault and lives in modest accommodations. oh, and then there is the way that he shows up unannounced in crowds. and he cold calls people, including a call to a man struggling with his faith after his brother's murder. i mean, can you imagine the pope calling you to talk with you about your crisis of faith? as we told you last week, pope francis is also down for posing for a self-ie and he has in all of this made clear he is the pope of the people. but now we know he is also the pope for the people because pope francis says the catholic church should be a "home for all." with those three simple words spoken in an interview, the leader of the catholic church

affirmed that the church should welcome, well, everyone. by emphasizing this universal love of the church for humankind, pope francis articulated the radicalism of ancient an christianity in a way that hasn't happened in centuries. even with a passing understanding of church history knows it is implicated in war and conflict and oppression but this pope says it's time to recalibrate. he says we cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and use of con trap centive methods. when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in context and find a new balance. otherwise, even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards losing the freshness and fragrance of the gospel. the pope's comments do not immediately change church doctrine. but the message of francis is clear. less dogma, more love. that is a foot soldier idea which is why we just had to give

a tip of the pontifical hat to pope francis as our foot soldier of the week. that is our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. now this one may sound like a joke but we're going to have a real answer to the question. why did the chicken cross the ocean? the answer is information that you need to have. so come back tomorrow morning, 10:00 a.m. eastern and we'll answer it for you. right now, it's time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> thank you so much for stumping me. anyway, i'm going do my own show. breaking news from overseas. there's an apparent terror attack on a popular shopping mall. we'll bring you the new details. in washington, the countdown to a possible government shutdown. many on capitol hill saying it will happen. what does it mean? plus, we're americans rich and poor spent every dollar of in 2012. and office politics, hoda kotb talks about the zaniest tv and team of hoda and kathie lee and how all that got started. i'll be right back.

and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future? we'll help you get there. tough on grease yet gentle. dawn helps open something even bigger. [ all ] 3, 2, 1! this year, dawn is also donating $1 million. learn more at dawnsaveswildlife.com. using night-vision goggles to keep an eye on my spicy buffalo wheat thins. who's gonna take your wheat thins? i don't know. an intruder, the dog, bigfoot. could you get the light? [ loud crash ] what is going on?! honey, i was close! it's a yeti! [ male announcer ] must! have! wheat thins!

♪ we go, go, we don't have to go solo ♪ ♪ fire, fire, you can take me higher ♪ ♪ take me to the mountains, start a revolution ♪ ♪ hold my hand, we can make, we can make a contribution ♪ ♪ brand-new season, keep it in motion ♪ ♪ 'cause the rhyme is the reason ♪ ♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪ but with advair, i'm breathing better. so now i can help make this a great block party. ♪ [ male announcer ] advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair

may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. ask your doctor if including advair could help improve your lung function. [ male announcer ] advair diskus fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder. get your first prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd.com. i've got a big date, but my sinuses are acting up. it's time for advil cold and sinus. [ male announcer ] truth is that won't relieve all your symptoms. new alka seltzer plus-d relieves more sinus symptoms than any other behind the counter liquid gel. oh, what a relief it is.

breaking news from overseas. dramatic scenes is inside a shopping mall where there are reports of at least 20 dead. and possible hostages. in moments the latest. not again. just nine days to a possible government shutdown. both sides are digging in their heels. there are ways it might be avoided but will it? what if the government shuts down. lady liberty will be closed for business. we'll tell you about one particular fact that may infuriate you. and we have the very latest there. we will see amanda knox, highlights from an interview they gave with matt lauer. that saga for you, as well. hello, everyone. high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." breaking news in the capital of